Background This article will cover how to prepare a project with Visual Studio Online and Agile method. This article assumes that you already have Visual Studio Online account. If you don’t have one, just create at http://visualstudio.com. Creating a project and version control On your visual studio online account, create a new project You can full a project information like the picture below After waiting for several seconds, you can navigate to the project. Adding a member After creating a project, you can add a member by clicking manage link on your project dashboard You can add your team member by typing his name or his Microsoft account email. Please note, that your team member should be registered on visual studio online to join the project. Planning the iterations On a real project, the customer and the team meet each other on a session called a planning game. The planning game will discuss the user story, the itreration length, and the release plan of the system. On this step, we assume that you already have the user story and the release plan of the project. You manage the iteration length by clicking the gear icon on the right uppoer of your visual studio Select the iterations tab. For this example we create one release with two iteration. As you see we also set the date for the release plan date and the iteration. You can see on the picture, we put an overhead time to make sure the quality of our source is sufficient. Please make sure to check the checkbox to activate the iteration backlog Open back your project, and visit Work tab, you will see that we are ready to add some user story on the Visual Studio Online. Conslusion and Future works On this post we create a project with Visual Studio Online as a fisrt step on Application Lifecycle Management. On the next post we will discuss how to create a feature, story amd task. You can grab the visual studio on Amazon.
Problem You uninstall SQL Server 2012 and install a new SQL Server 2014 for your development machine. However after the installation of SQL Server 2014 you get an error like below Could not load file or assembly Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Sdk.Sfc, Version=11.0.0.0 And you can’t add the data connection on Visual Studio 2013 Cause This is because you remove the entire installation of SQL server 2012. Visual Studio 2013 need the installation of some of SQL Server 2012 library Solution Simply download the latest package of this library to fix the problem Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Management Objects Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client After you download the package, please close the Visual Studio and do the installation. You done !
Yes, its there.. the Visual Studio 2015 aka Visual Studio 14 is free for download. It still early access CTP so you will find many glitches about it. But according to my experience the Visual Studio 14 provides you better integration on the cloud (Azure), mobile, and also Office 365 Apps You can dowload the latest version of Visual Studio 14 CTP here You can see the notes about this release here I will post my screencast video about this Visual Studio 14 CTP on this weekend so stay tune
Problem Yesterday, I created empty web template with Web Forms support through Visual Studio 2013. Unlike, the WebForms and the MVC template that works flawlessly. I got unique error as shown on figure It is said that I need ScriptResourceMapping for jquery. It is strange that I don’t need JQUERY for this project. Solution After doing a search there are several options to solve the Empty Web issues on Visual Studio which are Option 1 – If you don’t need JQUERY If you don’t need jquery you can add this on your web.config <appSettings> <add key="ValidationSettings:UnobtrusiveValidationMode" value="None"></add> </appSettings> Option 2 – If you need JQUERY - Installing JQUERY using nugget For this purpose you can read this link Option 3 – You don’t need JQUERY but need ASP.NET WebForms Validation For this purpose you can read this link
Problem Today, there are two main SKU of Visual Studio namely Visual Studio Online and Visual Studio 2013 products. This article will discuss which one you should buy or invest if you want to build something using Visual Studio. Solution we divide the usage of Visual Studio into five tiers which are personal / hobbyist, startup, SMB, and Enterprise. This solution is designed to be simplest as possible to get better understanding of Visual Studio Product. Personal / Hobbyist You are student or hobbyist, you can grab the Visual Studio Express is a freebies and have a sufficient features to create a product. This program is royalty free so that you can use and sell your software without hassle. The disadvantage of this product is each platform has different SKU. For example, if we want to build on web and on desktop you should install two products on a same machine. This won’t happen on Visual Studio Professional features. You can download the Visual Studio Express here and if you want to store you codes to the cloud you can use Visual Studio Online Basic that has five users free slots. Startup If you are startup you can also use Visual Studio Express. However, we recommend you buy the Professional Version. Yes, it costs about 300$. But it’s really worth for your startup. The professional features has many fundamental aspects of superb IDE such as One stop coding for any platform Unit Testing framework Code metrics and analysis Agile method Code visualization Professional deployment support You can buy the Visual Studio with MSDN or without MSDN. MSDN means you have all Microsoft Product for test purpose (not for production to a client). The MSDN will cost $1200 yearly and without MSDN it takes cost 300$. Click the picture below to understand the latest prices. You can download Visual Studio Professional here and if you want to store you codes to the cloud you can use Visual Studio Online for professional, it costs 45$ per months and it includes Visual Studio Professional also. So as a startup you can invest on three model Visual Studio Online Professionals (Subscriptions / Month) , Visual Studio Professional, and Visual Studio Professional with MSDN (Subscriptions / Year). If you don’t have a fund, don’t worry you can use Visual Studio Express family or Visual Studio Online Basic. SMB We categorize SMB if you have development team more than 10 people. in this model, you need a streamline software engineering process like a Agile method. In this case you can use Visual Studio Professional, but if you need more engineering approaches such as Test case or testing framework UML diagram Team Room Code Review Architecture Validation Code Cloning Graphics Debugging You can grab the Visual Studio Premium, Visual Studio Premium with MSDN ($6200 / year). There is no Visual Studio Online version that has Premium inside so you need to buy Visual Studio separately. You can download the Visual Studio Premium Version Here Enterprise Yes, if you are enterprise that has many IDE on your company and want to integrate all of your IDE, you can buy Visual Studio Online Advanced Subscriptions (60$ / months). It includes a plugin support for many major IDE like Eclipse, Visual Studio, and others. Others option is choosing Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN ($13.299/year). Please notes that even Visual Studio Online Advances doesn’t have Visual Studio included, you should buy Visual Studio separately. Visual Studio Ultimate has several enterprise ready features such as All Visual Studio Premium features Load testing Adopting FULL Application Lifecycle Management using standard like CMMI, SCRUM, and others Has Intellitrace to understand the debug history Architecture dependency Education Education is special SKU, you can grab Visual Studio Ultimate for free if your campus is STEM-D and is enrolled with Dramspark Premium. If your campus is not STEM-D you can get Visual Studio Professional with Dreamspark Standard for free. Quick Fact Before I close this article you might notice some facts which are: Visual Studio Professional is only version of visual studio that can be bought without MSDN Visual Studio Express is a free version for Visual Studio The Visual Studio online professional is the one and only visual studio online version SKU that include IDE of Visual Studio Professional The reniew prices of MSDN subscriptions is only 30% of new subscriptions You can do a quick buy using amazon below
If you have a WIFI connection and has a connection problem after you install the Visual Studio. This short article will help you to fix the issues. Problem You can’t connect to the internet as well as change the connection from one WIFI to the others. Cause This happens because Visual Studio creates a network bridge to facilitate the internet connection between emulator and real internet connection. Unfortunately, some of WIFI adapter take longer to connect the internet because the bridge connection Solution There are several solution when you face this problem Option A. Delete the Windows Phone Emulator and Network Bridge If you don’t have a windows phone project that connected to the internet, or you have device to debug your Windows Phone app, you can savely to delete Windows Phone emulator and Network Bridge Option B. Disable and Enable Network Bridge If you don’t one to delete it. When you change the WIFI connection and the Network Bridge shows Identifying….you can disable and re-enable again to reset network bridge that improve the connection between router and your wifi.
Changes always happen. although you have a good client in the world, changes always happen. Requirements will change anytime, so the good practice to limit the changes is by finishing the project as soon as possible. If you can’t finish your work as soon as posible, you should monitor the changes so that it won’t hurt your team, your financial, and your mood. Visual Studio Online has a good ALM feature to manage the changes using Work features on the web site First of first you should create project on visual studio online and choose Agile or Scrum template. For this post, we will use Agile template. Understanding Estimation Estimation is a way to estimate the workload and to calculate the budget that need to be invested for the project. On Agile template on Visual Studio you can set it on the story point as shown on the Figure 1. You estimate your effort by simply adding story point on Visual Studio Online Understanding Actual Work Actual work is an effort that really happen for such a task. In this concept, a story has several tasks. each task will have estimation and actual. The estimation each task should be a total of a story point. For example, if we have 24 story points and 12 tasks, so each the total story point should have 24 story points. However task has hour unit not the story point unit. Therefore, you should convert the story points unit into hours The big question is 1 story points = .. hour? The answer is depend on your team velocity. You can get the team velocity by understanding team performance on the past. One of the technique to calculate the relation between story point and hour is by doing a three points approaches. Three points approaches The basic idea to get team velocity is to understand their real performance. This approach can be done by collecting the real experience of the team on a project. For example, on a project a team do 10 iteration. Based on the iterations,you should Choose the three best performance (high velocity, more story points on the same time) Choose the three average story points Choose the three worst story points Calculate the average for the story points Divide the story points with the length of iteration You will find the average of your team velocity. However, the technique is applicable if: You do the similar project (i.e. web vs web) You have same team You have similar working condition References
After estimating and planning, it is time to develop the software. Visual Studio Online provides you a set of tools to improve the team collaboration. This article will cover several features that van be used for collaborate, codes, and test. Collaborate Visual Studio Online provides the team room. Team room is a IM based model that not only provide IM features but also track and audits the codes and checks in. You can read the description of this feature here “Collaborate your Team with Team room on Visual Studio Online” Codes Review Pair programming on ALM minimalist can be done through the feature of Visual Studio such as codes review. Codes review is a way to implement manual code quality review through Visual Studio. Please read “Code Review on Visual Studio” Unit Test Unit test is “strange” but usefull. You might be hear test driven development (TTD). TTD is a way when developer create a test first and after that create the codes. You will remember the concept of test first design. In Visual Studio Online, the developer can easily create unit test and run it just like before. You can read this article “Creating Unit Test On Visual Studio Online” Get Feedback to the Stakeholder After an iteartion of a project. It will be good idea to request a feedback from the stakeholder. ALthough, you can send an email and tell them to test it. Visual Studio Online through Microsoft Feedback system can get more detail on the feature feedback from the stakeholder. You can read “Get feedback from your customer”: Automated Build On traditional development, you might build the codes before the codes is commited. On Visual Studio Online, the build will be automatically done when the user checked in. You can to automatic build by reading this “Build Check In” Creating Test Plan There are several resrung that can be done in Visual Studio Online. You can read the how to create test plan on Visual Studio Online. Test Case. small unit of test Test Plan, several test case that combined into a scenario or features. Test Suite, is a combination of test plan and others test that can be happen outside the Visual Studio. Good Book To Read
If customer ask you how long this project will take? or how the software will be deliveres. The ALM Minimalisr provides you several ways to estimate the project. In Visual Studio Online, you can do that by filling the story point on the stories or tasks. This article will cover you several ways to estimathe the project using Agile and ALM Minimalist Story Points Story point is the default way to estimate the project. Story point is specific and subsjective based on the team. Story points is not related directly with the time but it’s related directly with the effort. it estimated by the developer. Story Point = Effort On a release, each iteration should have same numbers of story points Triangulation Estimating by relating between stories. For example, we have two stories. One story has 4 points, and the others has 6 points. If the third story is larger than story one and smaller than story two it might be 5 points. Theme and Epic Here are the simple way to understand Theme = simple stories that can be combined Epic = a huge stories that should be separated Theme and epis is a cacual way when you heard that the user story is to large for example story A has 20 points, if we separated into 5 stories, the total sum should be 20’ Planning Poker Estimating the stories by discussing with the client and the developer. Planning poker discuss the stories length by using a short workshop and poker game model. Good Book to Read
My teammate feel not really satisfied with the ALM features on VIsual Studio 2013. It is great, but lack of simplicity for small to medium project. After using Visual Studio for almost than 15 years, I agree that ALM is a good feature, but not as for startup who still fighting with the client changes and codes horror. Of you already subscribe to visualstudio.com and feel that you still focusing on the codes or API usage. focusing on the collaboration between client and you in terms of changes control. focusing on planning schedule rather than thinking the burndown chart. If you feel like the situation above is same with your team. This article is for you, this article will show you how to minimize the usage some of redundant TFS features on small and mediim project. This practices is already done on more tha five projects that run on two till six months. We call this practice as ALM minimalist. The ALM minimalist purpose is to Empower the client and your team through multimodal communication Empower the team to focus on creating quality codes by adopting eXtreme Programming practices Empower the coach / project manager to minimize the changes and to get better revenue on a project. With the three purposes of ALM Minimalist. the practice needs several subscriptions for your team which are Office 365 subscriptions Visual Studio Online Subscriptions After you subscribe both services, we will discuss how to utilize the services for ALM activities, see you in the next post. cheers, @ridife